WFP is expanding its safe-stove initiative in Ethiopia by distributing 24,000 additional safe, fuel-efficient stoves in the Ahmara region. The project, which began five years ago thanks to funding from Germany’s KfW Development Bank, will also be generating revenues from carbon credits that WFP will reinvest in food insecure communities. We met a few families to see the benefits of these stoves for their lives and their environment.

This Indicator Report provides a monthly snapshot of the regional response to the South Sudan Situation. The indicators included report on the Post 15 December 2013 South Sudan caseload only. The report is prepared through collaboration with the reporting country and the Regional Support Hub, Nairobi.

The notes below provide further contextual information on various sector indicators:

Ethiopia - IOM offices in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Yemen this week helped 125 Ethiopians – many of them unaccompanied minors – to return home from Tanzania and Yemen.

The 54 returnees from Tanzania, who included six unaccompanied minors, were detained by the Tanzanian authorities while trying to reach South Africa and spent over four months in detention before IOM arranged their return home.

In Ethiopia, almost one third of the population lives in poverty and 40 percent of children under the age of five suffer from stunting. For decades, parts of the country have faced high levels of food insecurity and have depended on food aid to cover their household food shortages. In the country’s northern Amhara region, however, women farmers are beginning to break the cycle of hunger and poverty by increasing agricultural production and raising incomes with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

On 16 February 2015, Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Mary of Denmark inaugurated a Technical Vocational Training Centre for South Sudanese refugee youth in Tierkidi camp in Gambella region of Ethiopia. The training centre which is funded by DANIDA and implemented by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) seeks to train refugee youth on various vocational skills and to serve as a recreational centre for refugee youth in the camp.

25 February 2015, Rome - A cooperative of women in Ethiopia is set to reach the international market thanks to a partnership between Italian gourmet food store Eataly and FAO.

The two joined forces in 2013 to support family farmers around the globe in boosting their production and finding ways to reach new overseas customers. The work with the women's cooperative is one example of this collaboration.

Confirmation has recently been received that on 30 November 2014 a new Guinness World Record was set in Ethiopia. Over an eight-hour period some 3383 people were provided with voluntary HIV counselling and testing at the Gambella National Stadium in the Gambella region.

The HIV counselling and testing campaign was led by the Government of Ethiopia, in collaboration with UNAIDS, to commemorate World AIDS Day 2014. The aim of the HIV campaign was to mobilize communities in Gambella to find out their HIV status and to link them to HIV prevention and treatment services.

Ethiopia - IOM Ethiopia organized a two-day International Migration Law (IML) training for senior government officials of the national and regional State Anti-Trafficking Taskforces on February 18 and 19, 2015. They included officials from the Bureau of Labour and Social Affairs, Bureau of Justice, Bureau of Women and Children Affairs, and Police Commission.

Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon (PRRR), an innovative partnership that works to expand the availability of vital cervical cancer screening, treatment and breast care education—especially for women living with HIV—was officially launched in Ethiopia by Roman Tesfaye, the First Lady of Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa on 11 February.

HIV-positive women are four to five times more likely to contract cervical cancer than their HIV-negative peers. In Ethiopia cervical cancer is the second most-common female cancer and is responsible for 16.5% of all cancer deaths among women.

New five-year activity will strengthen collaborative effort against drug-resistant TB

Addis Ababa, February 18, 2015 – Representatives from the Governments of Ethiopia and the United States joined with officials from ALERT and St. Peter’s hospitals today to inaugurate renovated tuberculosis (TB) laboratories and an outpatient department. The U.S. Government, through USAID, funded the renovation that included basic culture laboratory equipment, installation of a negative pressure system and furniture under its TB CARE I activity.

Ethiopian ranks first in Africa and tenth in the world in terms of her livestock resources. Despite this the country does not earn the expected amount of benefit as compare to the available livestock resources owing to weak animal health control information system.

February 14, 2014 (ADDIS ABABA) – The United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in Ethiopia on Saturday announced that Ethiopia has now officially become world record holder for most people being tested for HIV.

Rahel Gettu, UNAIDS country community mobilisation and networking advisor in Ethiopia, told Sudan Tribune that Guinness World Records has on Friday officially confirmed the horn of Africa’s nation has beat the world record which previously had been held by Argentina.

Jigjiga/Wardher, 9 February 2015 - A pledge of commitment for a polio-free Ethiopia was made on 8 February 2015 in Jigjiga and Warher at the launch of the polio national immunization days (NIDs) in Somali Regional State. Ethiopia has been polio free since 5 January 2014, but the risk of polio cases in Horn of Africa prevails. The campaign running until 11 February 2015 aims to reach over one million children under the age of five in the region.

UNFPA Country Representative, Mr. Faustin Yao, visited gender and humanitarian programmes being supported in three Zones in the Oromiya Regional State

In the visits he conducted between 3 and 4 February, he had the chance to see gender-based violence and humanitarian programmes being supported by UNFPA in East Shoa, West Harargehe and East Hararghe Zones of the Region.

The global poverty-fighting organization CARE today received a contribution of $2.4 million as a result of a Holiday Campaign in H&M stores worldwide. “We are very grateful for this generous contribution,” said Dr. Robert Glasser, secretary general of CARE International. “These funds will allow us to empower women entrepreneurs and workers from low-income urban communities in Ethiopia and help us raise global awareness of the enormous benefits associated with empowering women and girls in the fight against poverty and social injustice.”

Deforestation is a global reality that significantly contributes to climate change.

Who knows this better than Ethiopians, who have suffered through severe drought in recent decades? They have endured years of displacement and starvation. Those in rural areas often suffer the most.

And yet, despite this reality, thoughtful women like Workinesh Bayisa, continue to cut down trees to use as fuel for their cook-fires. With no electricity or gas, fire is her only means of providing meals for her family. She has no alternatives.